AdministrativeLaw DueProcess FifthAmendment JusticiabilityDoctri
Were the Petitioner's federal due process rights violated when the trial court denied a mistrial after the Petitioner was electrically shocked in front of the jury?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED In your Petitioner’s trial for aggravated robbery in the Criminal Court for Knox County, Tennessee, the trial court over defense objection refused to grant a mistrial when the Petitioner was electrically shocked by a stun belt in front of the jury during the trial, when that stun belt was activated by a courtroom deputy who was not specifically instructed to do so by the trial judge and where the trial judge acknowledged that the Petitioner had merely stood up in order to show respect after an elderly female relative had finished her trial testimony. L Were the Petitioner’s federal due process rights to a fair trial under both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, violated when the Petitioner’s request for a mistrial was denied and the jury was then allowed to render a guilty verdict, notwithstanding the highly prejudicial spectacle of the Petitioner being electrically shocked by a stun belt in front of the jury? IL. Were the Petitioner’s federal due process rights to a fair trial under both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, violated when the trial court delegated the decision to activate the Petitioner’s stun belt to a courtroom officer who made the decision to shock the Petitioner in front of the jury, without any direction from the trial court to do so? i